Lent

Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent, the forty day period before Easter... a period of quiet contemplation and penitence. As Christians, we have been taught to emulate the life of Christ as much as possible, not just because He is a good example, but because by doing so we eliminate the time and space barriers that separates us. From a theological stand point, when we take the communion, we are not doing it just so in remembrance of Him, but because we believe at that singular moment when we do receive the host and bread, we are joined to Him, and with Christians everywhere else beginning from the first apostles and to those who shall come later- we are all partaking the same feast in spirit. Similarily, we observe Lent because it signifies the period in which Jesus was supposed to have gone into the wilderness to fast for forty days, and later to trimuph over the devil's temptations. The wilderness holds a central theme during Lent, we talk about going into wilderness of faith, we talk about isolation, contemplation. It is believed that by going into the wilderness, we shall become better because of it. Yet, we also seem to connotate the wilderness with negative attribute as well... as if the wilderness is something that we should normally avoid, that it is dark and mysterious, and not the place one should be regularly. Somehow, during the course of evolution, humans as civilizations have become much removed from the natural environment that our ancestors have lived in. We have gone from being dweller of trees and caves, to being people of the land, to finally the people of suburbia, urban and metropolitan. Nature, and wilderness presents the modern man/woman with a sense of mystery and fear. We watch with morbid fascination at those who choose to go into the wilderness knowingly. We usually call these people eccentrics, hermits, and sometimes anti-social. We also label the outdoorsmen as being a unique breed, the lumberjacks who smelled nothing butforest pine. We even look at John the Baptist as an eccentrics of sort. The Bible took special care to describe John as a "wild" man... and psychologically, we like to point at freaks and whoever stands out from the norm and mock them, while internally thankful for the fact that we are "normal, and not like them". That is perhaps the reason we love watching shows like "Survivor" on the TV- because it shows a bunch of people who are willing to put themselves to the test by surviving the elements, and become the "animals", revealing the true human/ beast nature inside of us. Our fear of the wilderness, to feel exposed and vulnerable is repeatedly reinforced by the fear of degrading ourselves to the levels of fellow creatures which walks, fly and swim this earth. I find the wilderness comforting, true, I have my reservations for being there. However, I enjoyed the fact that I am in the open and being humbled by the very same vastness and greatness which has humbled those before me. It gives me a certain serenity, to know that I reach for the same stars, dream the common dreams of those who first slept beneath them. The wilderness should not be something to be shunned, it is there that we find our true selves, it is there that we truly acknowledge who we are. We have built artificial environments to secure ourselves, we have construct our own divine entities to worship and enslave ourselves to. Yet, it is the wilderness that provided the first divine spark of faith, it is the wilderness that reveals to us in full force the wonder that has humbled us, and allow us to be true beings of sentinence. Through the wilderness, we acknowledge our limitations, our minute/ ephemeral presence... and because of it, because of our patience and acceptance, we found hope. Hope does not beget patience, but rather the reverse is true. All the virtues which Christ seek in us is nourished through the wilderness. It is in wilderness that we learn to be self sufficient and at the same time to learn and rely on the natural resources of God. It is through nature that we find our flow, the seasons of things. We learn not to push, nor will we be disappointed as easily, because we acknowledge that there is a time for sowing, and a time for reaping; and in between things unexpected will happen, but we will survive. Faith,love and hope exists in the wilderness in vast abundance, I believe we need to find it and then spread their seed in humanity. In our own wilderness shall we find exotic fruits for the wilderness of Christ is not a barren desert.